3 ms·

> what are you supposed to do? Reward the company providing even less of what you want? Assuming it isn't regulation (e.g. patents) getting in the way, you pul

by 9rx 2y ago

> what are you supposed to do? Reward the company providing even less of what you want? Assuming it isn't regulation (e.g. patents) getting in the way, you pull up your pants and produce [A, D, and E]. If that's too rich for your blood, I suppose rewarding the company that got you something close enough at a tiny fraction of the cost is reasonable. It is hard to deny the value in that. > What you need is more competition. Okay, but if you aren't willing to build [A, D, and E], why would anyone else? These things aren't delivered by angels from heaven.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
The question is, why is it so infeasible to enter the market? In theory it should be possible for someone to do this. Phones are made of modular parts. Some companies make chips, some make screens, some make operating systems, some make app stores, so you go acquire each of the parts, make your modifications and start selling your phone. First problem, the best phone chips are made by Apple and they won't sell them to you for use in a competing phone. Also, they won't sell you their OS or let you use their app store. So it's already not possible to satisfy some of the requirements, e.g. using a chip of that quality or compatibility with existing third party iOS apps. This is hypothetically more possible with Android, but it still isn't. Qualcomm will sell you a chip; it isn't as good, so you can't satisfy "use the best chip", but they'll sell it to you. You can get Android for free. Well, AOSP anyway. But that won't pass Google's Play Integrity system, so you've already lost compatibility with the existing bank apps. Other Android apps have more dependencies on Google APIs that aren't part of AOSP, so you've once again lost widespread compatibility with the only other market for third party apps, unless you ship with Google Play services. At which point you're not satisfying the "doesn't hoover up your data and send it to Google" requirement. So anti-competitive behavior on the part of the incumbent duopolists is why there isn't more competition, and antitrust enforcement would address it. For example, break up Apple into its constituent parts. Then Apple Silicon is a separate company like AMD or Qualcomm and you could buy their chips to use in your own phones, the existing App Store becomes a separate entity with no monopoly on distributing apps to iOS users, etc. At which point someone can feasibly produce a phone that does everything you want, and then someone would.
- 9rx 2y ago
  > The question is, why is it so infeasible to enter the market? It is capital intensive, so that is a hurdle, but capital isn't that hard to come by if you are doing something compelling. It was downright easy in the 2010s. Regulation is the biggest problem. It is straight up against the law to become a direct competitor in computing. Even with all the necessary resources, just try to build an iPhone clone, but with the addition of Y, and see how long you can go before lawyers start breathing down your neck. If you make the first day, I'll be impressed. You can try to compete indirectly with something kind of the same but different enough to skirt the laws, but that's rarely what the market wants, making it difficult to justify the effort and capital utilization. You need something truly game changing to consider venturing down that road.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > It is capital intensive, so that is a hurdle, but capital isn't that hard to come by if you are doing something compelling. It was downright easy a few years ago. Part of the issue is that it isn't just capital intensive, it's capital intensive across a vertically integrated market. If all you had to do was make a phone chip competitive with Apple's, or reimplement the proprietary Google APIs, or convince other phone OEMs and third party developers to use your competing app store, you might be able to pull it off. But when you have to do all of those things and more? At some point the hill is just a sheer cliff. > Regulation is the biggest problem. It is straight up illegal to become a direct competitor in the computing space. Oh, that's definitely a major issue. In theory DMCA 1201 has an interoperability exception, but the exception is narrower than it ought to be and then you would have to be willing to stand up for it in court against a megacorp with unlimited lawyers. There is no sensible argument for not fixing things like that.
    - 9rx 2y ago
      > But when you have to do all of those things and more? It would be completely insurmountable for one person, but distributing the load is what an economy is for. If all you had to do was make a competitive chip, and all I had to do was reimplement APIs, and all Joe Blow had to do was <X>... soon we'll have all the pieces. > Oh, that's definitely a major issue. It might even be the only issue. China could no doubt start dumping iPhone competitors on the US market tomorrow if the regulatory environment allowed it.
throw_a_grenade 2y ago
Eric did exactly what you suggest, and found out he can't really build it without permission from the manufacturer. So no, you can't just pull up the pants.
- 9rx 2y ago
  You'd only need permission if regulation required it, and we already excepted where regulation is what is getting in the way. So, no, you can pull up your pants just fine.

by 9rx 2y ago

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

The question is, why is it so infeasible to enter the market? In theory it should be possible for someone to do this. Phones are made of modular parts. Some companies make chips, some make screens, some make operating systems, some make app stores, so you go acquire each of the parts, make your modifications and start selling your phone. First problem, the best phone chips are made by Apple and they won't sell them to you for use in a competing phone. Also, they won't sell you their OS or let you use their app store. So it's already not possible to satisfy some of the requirements, e.g. using a chip of that quality or compatibility with existing third party iOS apps. This is hypothetically more possible with Android, but it still isn't. Qualcomm will sell you a chip; it isn't as good, so you can't satisfy "use the best chip", but they'll sell it to you. You can get Android for free. Well, AOSP anyway. But that won't pass Google's Play Integrity system, so you've already lost compatibility with the existing bank apps. Other Android apps have more dependencies on Google APIs that aren't part of AOSP, so you've once again lost widespread compatibility with the only other market for third party apps, unless you ship with Google Play services. At which point you're not satisfying the "doesn't hoover up your data and send it to Google" requirement. So anti-competitive behavior on the part of the incumbent duopolists is why there isn't more competition, and antitrust enforcement would address it. For example, break up Apple into its constituent parts. Then Apple Silicon is a separate company like AMD or Qualcomm and you could buy their chips to use in your own phones, the existing App Store becomes a separate entity with no monopoly on distributing apps to iOS users, etc. At which point someone can feasibly produce a phone that does everything you want, and then someone would.

9rx 2y ago
> The question is, why is it so infeasible to enter the market? It is capital intensive, so that is a hurdle, but capital isn't that hard to come by if you are doing something compelling. It was downright easy in the 2010s. Regulation is the biggest problem. It is straight up against the law to become a direct competitor in computing. Even with all the necessary resources, just try to build an iPhone clone, but with the addition of Y, and see how long you can go before lawyers start breathing down your neck. If you make the first day, I'll be impressed. You can try to compete indirectly with something kind of the same but different enough to skirt the laws, but that's rarely what the market wants, making it difficult to justify the effort and capital utilization. You need something truly game changing to consider venturing down that road.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > It is capital intensive, so that is a hurdle, but capital isn't that hard to come by if you are doing something compelling. It was downright easy a few years ago. Part of the issue is that it isn't just capital intensive, it's capital intensive across a vertically integrated market. If all you had to do was make a phone chip competitive with Apple's, or reimplement the proprietary Google APIs, or convince other phone OEMs and third party developers to use your competing app store, you might be able to pull it off. But when you have to do all of those things and more? At some point the hill is just a sheer cliff. > Regulation is the biggest problem. It is straight up illegal to become a direct competitor in the computing space. Oh, that's definitely a major issue. In theory DMCA 1201 has an interoperability exception, but the exception is narrower than it ought to be and then you would have to be willing to stand up for it in court against a megacorp with unlimited lawyers. There is no sensible argument for not fixing things like that.
  - 9rx 2y ago
    > But when you have to do all of those things and more? It would be completely insurmountable for one person, but distributing the load is what an economy is for. If all you had to do was make a competitive chip, and all I had to do was reimplement APIs, and all Joe Blow had to do was <X>... soon we'll have all the pieces. > Oh, that's definitely a major issue. It might even be the only issue. China could no doubt start dumping iPhone competitors on the US market tomorrow if the regulatory environment allowed it.

throw_a_grenade 2y ago

Eric did exactly what you suggest, and found out he can't really build it without permission from the manufacturer. So no, you can't just pull up the pants.

9rx 2y ago
You'd only need permission if regulation required it, and we already excepted where regulation is what is getting in the way. So, no, you can pull up your pants just fine.